


Snapdragon Daydreams

by TenSpencerRiedPlease



Category: Black Panther (2018), Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - College/University, Bucky Barnes' Butt, Bucky's Bad Gardening Skillz, Humor, I Don't Even Know, M/M, POV Alternating, Steve Is a Good Bro, T'Challa (Marvel) Is a Good Bro, but it's cute so, it's basically crack y'all, this was just a lil thing I thought up for funsies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-12
Updated: 2016-11-12
Packaged: 2018-08-30 12:52:45
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,809
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8533819
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TenSpencerRiedPlease/pseuds/TenSpencerRiedPlease
Summary: Bucky didn’t exactly intend on getting a landscaping job for some swanky rich immigrants but here he was, knocking over a plant that was probably worth more than his entire existence. “Oh fuck, what am I supposed to do? That thing is probably way overpriced,” Bucky says, hands in his hair as he turns to his coworker Sam.
*
Bucky Barnes might be painfully inept at anything to do with gardening but he had one attractive butt.





	

Bucky didn’t exactly intend on getting a landscaping job for some swanky rich immigrants but here he was, knocking over a plant that was probable worth more than his entire existence. “Oh fuck, what am I supposed to do? That thing is probably way overpriced,” Bucky says, hands in his hair as he turns to his coworker Sam. He seemed cool enough so Bucky figured they’d get along.

“We can probably fix it,” Sam says, eyeing the plant that was currently laying on the hot concrete in a pretty pathetic manner.

“How? I don’t know shit about plants, I don’t even know how I got this job, I am woefully under qualified. I can’t fix that snapdragon thing,” he says, waving his hand at the fat flower on the ground.

“That’s a peony. They aren’t even _close_ to the same,” Sam tells him, frowning.

“Whatever. Everything is a snapdragon because snapdragon is a cool thing to say.” That was the law, he didn’t make it up. The door behind them opens so Bucky turns to Sam, “the hell man, why’d you drop that?” he asks just in time to see his boss round the corner. Sam delivers _the_ most unimpressed look Bucky has ever seen in his life, including all those looks he’s gotten from Steve.

“You have _got_ to be kidding me,” he says, deadpan.

“I do hope you can save that peony,” his boss- T’Chaka? says.

Sam looks at the ground and looks back at Bucky, “well I hear this one has a great green thumb, I’m sure it’ll be fine,” Sam says. Bucky isn’t sure, but he thinks he makes a squeaking noise that may or may not be related to the pressure to fix that snapdragon so he didn’t get fired. Sam looks far too pleased with himself.

*

Bucky is certain he started a war with Sam because he blamed him for dropping that damn snapdragon, but he needed to win Sam back to his side because he accidentally planted an entire garden _backwards_ the day before because his boss’s hot son said hello. He could not afford, literally, to be so distracted but a pretty butt. Sam refuses to be persuaded though, and when Bucky goes to eat his lunch Sam launches dirt at him, getting it in his mouth and all over his face.

“What was that for?” Bucky asks, spitting the dirt out and wiping his face off.

“That’s for telling T’Chaka I knocked over that peony, for planting everything wrong, calling all the flowers _and_ the leafy green things fucking snapdragons, and for generally being a pain in my ass,” Sam says.

“You called the ferns leafy green things so I feel like you aren’t qualified to judge me. And those things over there are mums. I know because this one time a friend and I got really drunk and fell asleep in some old lady’s mums and she came and chased us for two blocks with a broom in the morning. We were winded before she was. That’s why I’ll never forget mums,” he says, eyeing the plant. It wasn’t in bloom yet; they were a lot less shrub looking then but for now it looked naked without its flowers.

“Cool story, I still hate you. Stop planting things because I am tired of having to fix your work. Two days ago you managed to plant _every_ flower in the west garden upside down. They have flowers on one end, roots on the other, how they hell do you screw it up so badly?” Sam asks.

“There was a hot guy,” Bucky says honestly. Sam throws more dirt at him.

*

Bucky Barnes might be painfully inept at anything to do with gardening but he had one attractive butt. T’Challa watches as the poor college student fumbles around with the flowers, not noticing OJ sniffing at the plants until he picks the cat up and almost plants her in the hole he just dug for the flower he was to plant. The cat is not impressed with this and runs off as soon as Bucky releases her. Bucky watches as the cat runs just out of his reach, glancing back and forth between the flowers and the cat as if he was confused as to how the cat got there.

“He is useless at his job. Who decided to keep him around?” Shuri asks, frowning at Bucky.

“Leave him alone, he is trying his best, even if his best is still not very good. Plus he is cute,” T’Challa says, looking back over to Bucky bent over some more flowers. He had a single summer to himself before it was back to school in a new country with a completely different way of doing everything. He was going to damn well enjoy staring at Bucky’s butt until he was stuck doing some horrible degree combination of politics and engineering. He had no real interest in politics but it was important to his father so he dealt with it. Besides, he had engineering and he loved that.

“You hired him so you could stare at him all day, didn’t you?” Shuri says, giving him a suspicious look.

“What? Do not look at me like that, you will understand when you are older,” he says. He waves a hand at her to shoo her off but she refuses to go. Like mold.

“Fourteen is plenty old enough to understand sexual attraction. I will never understand why it makes you so stupid, though,” she says, rolling her eyes as she walks off to go do whatever it was fourteen year old girls did. He was grateful for it too, because he could have went his entire life without knowing about his sister’s sexual awakening.

He turns back to watch Bucky, licking his lips as he watches his back muscles move while he reached out to plant the flowers. Another thing he and his father disagreed on. Flowers made him sneeze, but his father loved them and T’Challa had to agree that they were pretty. Thankfully he and his father were both in agreement about the toilet paper- his father may want to ensure that he did not take advantage of his privileged life but he _refused_ to use one ply. There were some things no human should be subjected to and that is one of them. And pineapple.

*

Bucky hated his second job at the local Starbucks but he had rent to pay so he suffered working there with Steve and Clint. Plus the guy who owned the Starbucks, Coulson, was awesome. It was the customers that made him want to rip his own hair out in frustration or annoyance. They spent time talking on their phones instead of telling him their orders and then complained he was taking too long to get them a drink they hadn’t ordered yet, yelled about the smallest of things, and generally looked down on him. The number of times he was tempted to spit in people’s drinks because they were such condescending jerks was high.

He was pretty sure Steve has done it a time or two, not that he would ever admit to it. The thing he _did_ enjoy about his job was that he worked with Steve and Steve took no shit. If someone was rude Steve was there to fight, and he would until the customer either gave up or Coulson was called in to point out that the customer was an ass. The middle aged man seemed to have little patience for putting up with people he disliked and after meeting his partner, one Nick Fury, he understood why he might not be willing to put up with nonsense. The guy unironically wore an eye patch and had one of the most impressive glares Bucky has ever seen. He and Sam should have a glare off to see who won. Bucky wasn’t even sure who would win that.

He’s watching Steve put away cups when he hears the door open and he resists the urge to groan as he turns around. When he sees who walked through the door he’s happy for it, because he really wouldn’t have wanted to offend his boss’s hot son. Bucky still didn’t have a name for him quite yet. He plasters on his best smile as Hottie approaches the till. When he gets a smile in return he just about faints on the spot, but he manages to hold himself together. He had no intention on making himself look like a damn twit; it was bad enough that he was wearing a stupid apron. The plus side was that his hair was up and he was reliably informed that he looked much more like an attractive man and less like Michael Myers with his hair up.

Hottie orders a Frappuccino, which makes Bucky weep a little internally because he _hated_ Frappuccinos, but it was an excellent time to catch his name. T’Challa, apparently, was his name so Bucky scribbles it down on the cup and tries not to feel too bad as he moves off to get his drink at the other end of the bar. Bucky goes back to sulking and pretending to do things while he watches T’Challa out of the corner of his eye. T’Challa seems to be watching him back, but he checks to make sure Clint isn’t behind him just in case. That would be super embarrassing and after that time he and Sam got caught arguing about snapdragons again he figured he should limit how much of a twit he looked like. He had about three percent of his pride left and he planned on keeping all three percent.

Eventually he has to actually do stuff so he sulks off to the back to grab some cups so they had extras during their next rush. On his way back out he hears T’Challa laugh, “you know, I have had some strange names on my Starbucks cups, but chinchilla is my new favorite,” he says to Bucky, eyes bright with amusement. He walks off then, snickering as he goes and Bucky frowns.

“Chinchilla?” Steve asks in a judging tone.

“I wrote T’Challa. I don’t know how I managed to mess up so bad that he got chinchilla out of it,” Bucky says, tilting his head in confusion.

“You need writing lessons,” Steve says and Bucky doesn’t protest it. It wasn’t like it was false.

*

Bucky dumps some Miracle Grow over Sam’s head, “so you can grow a better personality,” Bucky tells him as he rubs it in a little.

“Last week I farted in your sandwich container and put it back in your bag. You ate fart sandwich,” Sam tells him.

He dumps more Miracle Grow on Sam’s head, “you need a way better personality because you are _disgusting_.” There was no food he would consider safe now unless it was hand delivered straight to him. Sam was officially his number one enemy.

“Says the guy who eats ham and peanut butter on the same sandwich. You don’t deserve food if you’re that terrible to it,” Sam tells him. Bucky dumps some Miracle Grow in Sam’s lap too, just for good measure.

“Maybe that will help you outgrow your childish ways,” Bucky tells him, nose in the air. So he liked weird foods, Sam didn’t need to go fart on them. Sam ignores him so Bucky goes back to being a terrible gardener, taking care to stay just out of Sam’s dirt throwing zone.

By the time lunch hits he’s starving but he doesn’t trust his own food thanks to Sam being a barbarian and _farting_ on his sandwich. Sam knows it too, because he makes sure to eat his food with a lot of exaggerated faces while Bucky’s mouth watered just looking at it. He makes a promise to himself to find a way to ruin Sam’s food forever but for now Sam has successfully starved him out.

Sam basically holds eye contact the entire time, just to rub it in a little and Bucky resents that, really. Clearly that Miracle Grow was not doing its job unless it was fostering a crappier personality for Sam. By the time lunch is over Bucky is even hungrier and also ready to mess up every single one of Sam’s flowers. When he goes to follow Sam back to the damn gardens to sweat his ass off only to continue screwing up the poor flowers the door to the house opens. Bucky and Sam look over to find T’Challa standing there with food, “did you forget lunch?” he asks Bucky.

Bucky found it impressive that he managed to hold himself in place rather than tackling T’Challa to the ground and eating that food. “Yeah, rough morning,” Bucky lies. More like he was never trusting Sam with anything of his ever again, but T’Challa didn’t need to know that.

“Well, I have food if you want,” T’Challa says, gently holding the food out. Bucky manages- barely- from attacking the plate and he takes it with grace instead. Like a proper lady. Even if he isn’t a lady. He does, however, give Sam a giant grin as soon as he was sure that T’Challa couldn’t see his face.

“Thank you, that’s so nice,” Bucky says to T’Challa, smiling pleasantly at him.

He gets a pretty smile back, “no problem. I would not want to find you passed out in the gardens, that would not be pleasant.”

“It wouldn’t,” Bucky agrees, “but at least I’d get a nap and a good tan.”

*

T’Challa does his best to interact with Bucky as much as possible but he is _certain_ he and Sam are dating. They were constantly attached to the other’s hip and bickering like an old couple. It would be sweet if it were not for the fact that T’Challa was rather fond of Bucky. Shuri informs him that he is a pining twit but she is fourteen, what the hell did she know about anything?

He even goes out of his way to memorize Bucky’s Starbucks schedule so that he mostly only went in on days that Bucky worked. That was in part because Bucky always managed to botch his name, though he learns that that was due to some incredibly bad writing skills, not because he was intentionally messing the name up. The difference made it amusing instead of irritating. His friend, the small blonde, was funny too, and a talker. Bucky did not appear to be the verbal type but his friend could chat the hair off a dog. He did not mind so much because Steve happened to be a walking encyclopedia on American culture and the information T’Challa got from him was far more useful than the other places he has looked. He could fact check the things he was unsure of later.

His efforts to get closer to Bucky, though, do not start working in his favor until the school year is about to start and Steve is talking to him as he makes his drink, as usual. Halloween was the subject, which brought up something that has been confusing T’Challa since he first went to school in Britain. “What is with Santa Claus?” he asks, earning a frown from Steve, “what? You were discussing costumes and dressing up as things you are not- America has Santa Claus parades and pictures and such. I would assume Halloween ended at… well, Halloween night. What is with the mass celebration of a fat man in red breaking into your house? Breaking and entering is illegal, but for this man? Perfectly acceptable. And why are there flying reindeer that run over grandma and _why_ is that attached to a joyous occasion? That is terrible. I understand there are some religious connotations to the holiday, but I see them so little I wonder if it is truly religious,” he says.

Unless he missed the part of Christianity that talked about Santa Clause in particular. The religious bits, at least from what he has noted, are more closely tied to religious communities and institutions rather than a culture-wide event. Either way, the culture of Christmas and Santa Claus was baffling to him. Steve, at least, finds his confusion funny rather than offensive. The last time he asked someone about this they had looked at him like he grew a second head. He supposed he understood, to them the knowledge was easy to understand and acknowledge, but as someone who did not come from the same culture the fat man in red was a mystery.

“You could make a really good argument that Christmas is way more of a capitalist venture to make money than a religious holiday. That said you analysis of the holiday is pretty accurate and I don’t really know how to explain it from my end. It’s just something I’m used to by now, even if I never really considered the lyrics of Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer. Doesn’t she die? Whatever, point is it’s one of those weird cultural things that everyone sort of loves by now. Have you gotten to the war on Christmas stuff yet?” Steve asks, eyes bright.

“There is a war on Christmas?” T’Challa asks, frowning. How would that even _work_? Was it working? He would assume Christmas was winning given his knowledge of the event but what did he know logically.

“Depends on who you ask. Stick around here until Christmas at least; I want to see how an outsider sees all of this stuff. You should talk to Bucky about it though; he’s in cultural studies so he knows a lot of stuff about pop culture and all that. He’d be able to answer your questions more academically than I could,” Steve says. T’Challa tucks that and his newly acquired Christmas knowledge away s he could ask Bucky about this all later.

*

Grudgingly the damn gardens do get finished so T’Challa goes back to missing his entertainment attempting to plant flowers during the day. The good news was that he discovered that Sam and Bucky were _not_ dating and therefore Bucky was free to pursue. If he ever found a good way to do that. Shuri makes fun of him mercifully but she discovered American brand names so as far as embarrassing things go he was winning. He, at least, was well dressed and dapper looking. Even if Shuri thought he looked stuck up. He preferred to think he looked professional and she looked like… well, a fourteen year old in some very ugly sweaters.

The next time he sees Bucky, though, is in one of his macroeconomics classes. Steve had mentioned cultural studies, which T’Challa was certain did not mix with economics of this nature, but he could be wrong. He keeps an eye on Bucky though, mostly because his head tilts and confused looks were amusing. The professor eventually notices that Bucky is completely lost because he asks if there was something Bucky did not understand. “Buddy, I don’t understand a fuckin’ thing that came out of your mouth in the last hour. Is cultural anthropology?” he asks.

“Ah, well there’s your problem. This is macroeconomics,” the professor says, giving Bucky a sympathetic look.

Bucky frowns, “this is an economics class? At nine a.m? The hell kind of masochist signs up for an econ class ever let along at nine a.m? You know what, sir, you seem like… the literal devil for forcing these students to listen to economics this early in the day to be honest, but I wish you the best anyways. The rest of you people, y’all are the real MVP’s, good for you for torturing yourselves like this but I have got to get my humanities major ass back to humanities. See ya,” he says, picking up his stuff and walking out as the class snickers, including the prof. Bucky makes a beeline for the door and disappears.

“That certainly wasn’t the first time I’ve been called the devil by a student, but it might have been the most polite. I hope he finds his class,” the prof says before jumping back into brain numbing material that made T’Challa’s eyes hurt to look at.

The melted state of his brain is probably why he did not notice Bucky right away when he sat down at one of the tables in the school cafeteria. As a general rule cafeteria food was terrible- it was an unspoken law of the world that the food was designed to be awful- but T’Challa was hungry enough to brave it. He does not notice when someone starts walking towards him until said someone drops into a chair across from him. Steve looks perfectly content to be there but Bucky, who is hovering just behind him, looks ready to either fight or flee. Instead of doing either one of those things, though, he freezes with his eyes glued to the back of Steve’s head looking like he’s just been betrayed.

“So how are you?” Steve asks, ignoring his friend.

“Alright. I just got out of an economics class so my brain has stopped functioning for now, but I did get a lovely show in the middle of class from Bucky,” he says, smiling up at Bucky, who’s head snaps up at the mention of his name. He looks a mix of horrified and embarrassed but he doesn’t say anything for or against himself.

Steve turns to Bucky, “and this is about?” he asks, raising an eyebrow.

“I may have wandered into a class I thought I was supposed to be in because I was a very confused chicken,” Bucky says softly. “The class made me an even more confused chicken and then I found out it was economics and I decided that I did not hate myself that much. What happened to you in your childhood to make you want to suffer so bad?” Bucky asks T’Challa.

“My father’s interest in politics. I am not fond of the agendas myself, but technically I am Wakandan royalty and I am close to the throne. It would be useful to have political and economic knowledge, even if I far prefer engineering,” he says.

Bucky wrinkles his nose, “ew,” he says simply.

Steve smacks him, “don’t be an ass, dickheads don’t score dates,” Steve tells him, much to Bucky’s horror.

“He doesn’t mean-” Bucky starts but Steve cuts him off.

“Oh, I do mean that you two would be adorable together. So go date and frolic and stuff,” Steve says, waving a hand around. Bucky crouches behind Steve’s seat and groans in embarrassment but T’Challa has been through worse. Shuri was more blunt that T’Challa would prefer.

*

Of all the ridiculous things that he has ever said and done, like replacing Sam’s lotions with lube, he did not see Steve whipping out a date suggestion coming. He already met his ridiculous things that morning and then there went Stevie, too blunt as usual but in the end it worked out. T’Challa thought the whole thing was funny and he decided to follow through on Steve’s offer. That was how, against all odds, he ended up back in T’Challa’s backyard and thankfully far away from the flowers, lying on the ground looking at the sky.

“Do you attract strange energies all the time or have I only ever witnessed all the strange things that happen to occur with you?” T’Challa asks.

“Nope, I’ve pretty much always been a little weird. Have you always been so… stable? Seriously, you’re like a mini version of your father. Which isn’t a bad thing, FYI, he’s nice to the house staff and you always know which ones are good people by how they treat people they have no reason to be nice to.” T’Chaka showed genuine interest in his answers when he asked questions, made an effort to make sure Bucky and Sam weren’t dying in the sun, and generally seemed like a decent guy. If only the Starbucks customers would learn from him.

T’Challa snorts, “of course not. I had some wild teen years but I outgrew that a long time ago when I realized I could not sustain that forever. Then I supposed I settled into who I am now, which is certainly a good thing. My father was worried that I would always be as wild as I was in my teens and thankfully my sister is far less rebellious. He always wanted me to be aware of my place in society, how the things I had affected others but it took a long time for me to learn what he said mattered. I was more interested in beer pong and cats,” he says honestly.

Bucky snorts, “see, you’re like secretly this wise middle aged dude in a young person skin suit. I think I just matured a little listening to that speech, ten out of ten, you should write speeches for a living. The good news is that I hate beer long because I hate people so I tend to avoid them, but I love cats. I have a tabby named Mr. Shit because he’s an asshole who chews toes at night, I love the hell out of him though,” he says. So one time he tried to make a roast in the crock-pot only to come home and find that Mr. Shit managed to get the lid off and eat the whole thing. Or the one time he tried to kill Steve by sleeping on his face, or the time he caught like five birds somehow and let them all loose in Bucky’s apartment. They weren’t dead either, so they were all flapping around and he had no clue what to do with five injured birds. He ended up calling Clint, the bird expert, to come get them.

“I would never want to write speeches for a living, what if I accidentally write one for Brock Rumlow? I would never. Though I do find it odd that you dislike people and work in the service industry, that is odd. But the good news is that I also have a cat. Her name is OJ, which stands for orange juice, _not_ OJ Simpson. I would not name a cat after that man, _obviously_ ,” he says, clearly annoyed. That was something he’s gotten before, Bucky was guessing.

“I met Brock Rumlow once and he said he hated puppies. I decided that he wasn’t trustable and then he started getting big politically and I knew I made the right choice in not trusting someone who didn’t like puppies because he turned out to be a racist. The service industry thing though, that’s pretty much all I’m qualified for- honestly I don’t even know _how_ I got hired to work here for the summer let alone why I wasn’t fired three seconds in. I was incompetent. Once I worked in Walmart for six months and I was the fastest cashier there but I couldn’t tell my bosses that I was fast because I hate people enough to ring through items really fast. And I’ve met OJ. We had a minor disagreement about some flower holes and she probably hates me now,” Bucky says,

He hadn’t even noticed the cat until he tried to stick the animal head first into a hole he dug out for a flower. Poor cat has not gone near him since. He didn’t blame the animal; he probably wouldn’t be pleased with being tossed into a hole head first by some rando either.

“I hired you because I thought you attractive and I was not going to replace my summer entertainment. Vain, maybe, but you did actually learn how to properly plant flowers so it was a learning experience. Congratulations on surviving Walmart though, I have not heard good things. And I witnessed that little scuffle between you and OJ. Thankfully you accidentally gave her a lesson in not digging up the flowers and pooping in them like she usually does so my father was happy about that,” T’Challa says. Bucky snorts, of course the furry little asshole shat in the painstakingly planted flowers. At least Bucky broke that habit because Sam would have been _pissed_. Probably more pissed than the time Bucky replaced his regular toothpaste with dog toothpaste. Steve told him that was mean, but Sam was dumb enough to let him in.

Bucky sits up and grins though, “well now that I know my booty is wagable maybe I’ll become a stripper. I can have a gardener act or something,” he says.

“You are not that good with the flowers, love, you leave them be.” Bucky would be offended but it was true, so instead he laughs, throwing back his head. T’Challa laughs too as they both relax further into their conversation.


End file.
